Life's Little Triumphs

Sometimes, when we are in the trenches with Big Adoption and those that benefit, we can get to the point where we feel like we are Tokyo and the Industry is Godzilla. We get annoyed, then pissed, then we can act and speak without thinking. When I do that I am just another monster fighting the original one. Of course, it is hard to get a rational response to work with those whose career it is to promote and accomplish an irrational scenario.

I could be very jealous of the strides being made in Australia with an actual inquiry and the steps being taken in Canada...well, I AM jealous, but I am also happy for them and hopeful that the people here in the US who are affected by adoption will take a little courage from our friends in Oz and the Great North and join in the fight. In the US, we are definitely swimming against the current.

I want to celebrate those big victories because just getting started against the Adoption Machine is something to note. It is good that these things are happening in November along with Grayson and Ben reuniting and preparing to spend their lives as father and son. The court decision in MO to return her little boy to an undocumented alien is also one of the biggies. But I also want to celebrate little, everyday, life victories. These are the little, loose things on the periphery of the adoption zone. Some things don't make the evening news or the NY Times.

A friend of a friend, after trying for eight years, finally became pregnant. She was on bed rest from the 5th month on and delivered 5 weeks shy of her due date. Her little girl is doing well in the NICU down at Arnold Palmer hospital, gaining weight and breathing on her own. My friend went with the new mom to visit the little one and she had to pass on what this anxious but proud mother had to say.

She said, "Valarie, I cannot believe we were thinking about adopting. All I can think of is what your friend said about having people tell her she wasn't good enough to be a mother to her own child. I would die if someone were to take Lacey from me." Great thought, Leah. Pass it on. I think she identified because she had no idea if her daughter would be with her in the end or pass away from complications of prematurity. That is one more "civilian" who gets it.

My reunited daughter is sick. She has Lupus and when she gets an infection, it's usually a doozie. This time it's strep and more and she sounds terrible. Yet, as sick as she is, there was a member of her adoptive family who needed some tough love and a person to do that duty. She got out of bed, put on her big girl panties and did it! It was hard, it was painful, it was unselfish and it took a whole lot of courage. (Oh, and "it" is private.) I am so proud of her. She did what was right rather than what would make her "popular" with her family member. The victory over the adoptee people-pleaser in her is small by some standards,I guess, but huge with me. More than that, she showed the kind of person she is....a loving one.

I realized that, as I share my morning Facebook "I love yous," I can include my granddaughter. If my daughter had not been diligent in finding me, I couldn't have done that. I had a ball picking out Christmas presents for my great-grands..again, something I might have missed. For over 30 years, I would have given my eye teeth just to be able to say "Merry Christmas" to my surrendered children. I can do that, thanks to her and to a lot of good people who helped us both search.

Things aren't perfect for either of my surrendered children and me. But we know where the other one is and we can pick up the phone or send a card. The Industry was unable to prevent that and I call that a victory. Each time we have a problem with each other or a confrontation, and each time we talk and work it out, that is another victory. The Industry was unable to take our love away from  us.

Maybe these little things can, over time, whittle Godzilla down to what it really is...a man in a rubber suit, trampling a toy town. If I rightly recall my B-movie facts, monsters always get destroyed in the end. It's just a matter of finding the beast's weakness and using it against the Industry.

We may not have injured the Monster deeply, yet, but we have left a few scabs and minor wounds. Now, where's my salt? I keep it on hand for rubbing into open sores on the Monster's hide.

More On Excrement Occurs

I was in an inpatient facility for six weeks for an eating disorder. I learned a lot about what makes us use our drug of choice (in my case, food) and why we react to so many situations rather than making a thoughtful response. I learned the dangers of comparing my insides with the outsides of others. I figured out that I was a perfectionist and prone to dichotomous thinking and that I let old tapes about my lack of personal worth play on and on in my mind. I learned, most importantly, that I cannot control a damn thing but myself.

Life is an ocean and the ocean has waves and storms. In less poetic terms, shit happens. In those six weeks I heard more breast-beating, mommy and daddy-blaming and self pity that I thought existed. What bothered me most is that some of it came from me. I could, in that environment, step back and see that I was playing the tapes of "more unworthy than thou" and first learned the meaning of "Terminal Uniqueness." It was also in that environment that I heard words of common sense and hard-earned wisdom that stay with me to this day. Minnie O., bless her heart and may she rest in peace, a tough old raspy-voiced survivor of alcoholism and compulsive overeating, had a bit to say about our therapy. We listened because she had been in recovery longer than many of us had been alive.

"Hey," she croaked at one meeting. "You know how the jackass got into the ditch. Good for you. NOW, let's figure out how to get the jackass OUT of the ditch." Her opinion from her 80+ years (at the time...she recently passed at age 99) was that dwelling on what you couldn't control, things that had happened to you, without doing anything to change the effects it had on you was just "emotional masturbation."

Her other favorite was, "When I was young and they did this to me, shame on them. Now that I am an adult with the capacity to understand, if I keep whining about it, shame on ME." Her answer to that was to reach out and help others and it kept her sane, sober and at a dull roar with the food. One woman, who was abused as a child, kept crying about it. Minnie asked her what she had done about it. "It's a terrible injustice," she said. "Why not do what you can to speak out against that injustice and maybe help some others and learn how to live well in spite of the fact that it happened to you?"

Wow, what a concept! There comes a time when you start sounding like a broken record if you don't take it to the next level. I can sit around and talk about, cry about and relive the pain of losing my children to adoption all day, 24/7. OR, I can address the injustice and make things a bit hotter for the industry. I think I'll take door #2.

We've all been through a lot of crap, adoptee and nmoms. For the majority of us, none of it was our fault (moms and adoptees) nor were you unloved and forgotten (adoptees). Like the child who is born with a genetic defect and learns to live well with that defect (see references to Stephen Hawking from my previous post), it all falls into the category of "shit happens." The thing is, are we going to let the Industry and the NCFA and the legislative toadies get away with it, scott-free?

Anger is just an emotion, neither good nor bad, neither right nor wrong. Finding a constructive and worthy outlet for that anger is a lot better than letting it fester inside us, warping our perceptions and fuelling poor choices. I learned this from my treatment and, mostly, from Minnie O. I don't do it perfectly because it is a process and a journey..not a permanent fix nor a destination reached. But I am a lot happier for keeping at it.

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We're all special but none of us are so exalted above or pushed below others as to be so very, very unique. I'm okay as long as I remember that I have no control over anyone or anything else but myself, that life is real and that shit happens.

When You Don't Know What To Say

I am finding that blogging about my surrender and reunion experience can be a minefield. There is so much that I want to say but if I say it, it seems to be the wrong thing to have said. I wonder, if sometimes, our children would care enough to refrain from saying certain things to us?

I don't think that they often intend to hurt us, but talk about your knife wounds...we are to be censored but they have a wide-open field.

For instance, I know that being raised by other people is a reality for my children and all adoptees. I know that many adoptees see this as a positive thing. But, every time I hear words of praise for the adopters, "it was meant to be" or any variation thereof, the knife that was driven into my heart at surrender is twisted.

I respect how adopted people feel about their adopters. I would just ask the same in return. For many of us, the reception we received from our children's adopters wasn't the open-hearted thing for which we had hoped. Many of us were treated like dirty monsters invading a perfect world with no right to be breathing the same air. So, as we respect that adopted people care for their adopters, Please accept and respect the fact that many of us don't. I think, in all fairness, that shouldn't be required of us. Damn it, we are only human.

We natural mothers have also had to contend with the fact that the adoptee's "feelings of abandonment" are, for some reason, seen as more important than the tragic traumas of our surrenders. Neither the adoptee nor the natural mother is the center of the Universe. We are all part of the herd and the sooner we can reach a point of mutual respect, the better. I still have to turn to the term of "Terminal Uniqueness" whenever I think of how we can make every little, even obliquely, adoption-related issue all about us, mothers and adoptees. Gee, ain't we special?

I look at Stephen Hawking. He did not ask to be born with a genetic defect that ravaged his body while his mind remained whole and active. None of us have control, as infants, over what happens to us and we often have, if we are honest, no one to blame for a damn thing. Shit happens. My father wasn't the pick of Pops but my mother loved him and so there I was. I sucked my thumb over that one for a long time until I realized that my life was totally in MY hands. I'd rather cope than mope.

I tried to blog about how difficult this communication gap is for me and it backfired. One thing I don't want to do is hurt my children. But it is so frustrating, feeling gagged like this. Here I have decried the "walking on eggshells" scenario and that is just what I am being compelled to do. It is not the way I want things to be. Perhaps if it is known that this is a common response for so many of us in reunion, it might be helpful.

When we blog about our personal experience as it's related to the cluster-frack of adoption, we can often trip over our own keyboards. When we talk about how something is affecting us, we don't mean that as an indictment. But we can be clumsy. I was.

November is a nasty month with a day set aside for us to give thanks, and I wonder if that was not premeditated on the part of the industry and those in government and the adopters who support it. To our children, let me please point out that for us moms, just like you, this month, these idiots are asking us to be "aware" of the WORST THING, BAR NONE, that ever happened to us.

Don't be surprised if you don't find me in the gallery, applauding adoption or any one's adopters, especially the ones who had the privilege of raising my children. I am human. I am pained by the fact that someone else was given the joy I was denied at my expense. I am furious that so many adopters put their needs for that "only REAL parents" status ahead of the needs of the children they raised.

And I don't appreciate being treated like a cockroach in the kitchen. That's honest.

The Burden of Gratitude

"Adoption Loss is the only trauma in the world where the victims are expected by the whole of society to be grateful" - The Reverend Keith C. Griffith

The truth is, often, unpalatable and upsetting. But this is one truth that has to be re-stated on a regular basis. The adoption industry and those who drive the market for the industry cannot dispute nor disprove the fact that they have created a mythology where gratitude is expected from both the adoptee and the exiled mother.

One of the truisms about this invasion of our most sensitive, human relationship is that, in order to procure an infant for adoption, in most cases the mother must be systematically destroyed. Her ability to see herself as an effective parent must be obscured and her self-esteem diminished to a mere whisper of its former size. She is then told to go and make a life for herself and be grateful that she "did the right thing" for her child.

I hear some of the birthditzes of today talking about how overjoyed and grateful they are that their child is being raised by such "wonderful, fantastic, Christian, stable, add-your-own-adjective" people. When they say these things, I want to check their pupils for dilation. But that gratitude is expected of them and they comply. Can I just say the entire concept sucks, big time?

Worse, still, is the attitude of gratitude that is forced on our appropriated children from infancy. There is the specious comment, "aren't you grateful you weren't aborted?" To which I have to reply, "How would you know to be ungrateful if you were? How would you even know? You wouldn't be here to debate it."

But there is more to it than just the abortion controversy. There is that overt expectation of the adoptee that they show extreme gratitude for what other children take as a given. They, like all humans, didn't ask to be born. Since they were, they deserve care and nurture. People usually have children and adopt children because they want them. So why should there be the onus of gratitude on the adoptee? It seems to me that it should be the other way around.

Instead, I often hear paeans of praise and gratitude from adoptees that go beyond the normal expressions of love and respect for parents. The very nature of adoption, a child for the childless or for a home, places the responsibility on the shoulders of an infant, from day one of placement, for the emotional well being of the adopters. As the adoptee grows, so does that sense of obligation promulgated by the mythology.

Now, my raised children will defend me to the death as I would them. But if I act like a bitch, they will call me on it and will not uphold my bitchiness. On both ends, with my raised children, there have been times when we deserved the respect of each other and times when we didn't. That's life. I sure don't expect adulation for doing what I wanted to do...have and raise children.

In the case of the adoptee, you would think that they were the blessed recipients of a visit from the Gods. I have heard so many dramatic hymns of praise, both vehement and belligerently challenging to anyone who might say otherwise, for their adopters from some that are so overdone I want to bite into something bitter to get the taste of saccharine out of my mouth. I have to wonder who they are trying to convince...us, their adopters or themselves?

I'm not saying that a little gratitude is a bad thing. It is nice to hear a child you raised thank you for something that you did that helped them. But to EXPECT this gratitude for no other reason than the fact that a child was adopted by some lucky people whose number came up is unnaturally self-serving and not the way a normal family interacts.

It would be one thing if it were only the adopters who expected this, but the average Joe and Jane on the street, unaffected, personally, by adoption, seem to expect it as well. Popular culture expects gratitude from the mother and the adoptee along with a lot of other things and manages to exaggerate the horrors of abortion, inflate the numbers of so-called "dumpster babies" and, sadly, thinks that Safe Havens are the best thing since the paper napkin.

Am I glad that my children got adopters who seemed to really care for them? Yes. But am I grateful? NO. They had the joy of raising my children. They also seem to have royally screwed up along the way. They should be grateful that I was young, vulnerable and helpless. They got what Nature intended for me. How could they expect my gratitude?

And for Pete's sake, I am tired of hearing adopted adults being reviled for the simple idea that they should be allowed to know about their beginnings and heritage. I am sick of hearing them called disloyal, ungrateful and spoiled. I am tired of mothers being depicted as eternal teens in trouble, needing someone else to tell them what they need. WE NEED OUR CHILDREN. It's what we've always needed. Our children need the right to know us, to meet us and to ask us important questions to which any raised child would already know the answers.

I am most sick at heart about the fact that it all comes down to who has the money and who has the power. Because of these attributes, the burden of gratitude and near servitude is laid on our children and the burden of being called angry, bitter, damaged and other things is laid on both adoptee and mother.

But think about this. Every time a mother refuses to cringe in a closet, and every time an adoptee stands up and says "I am not obligated to anyone when it comes to my human rights," it is a victory. We are doing and saying what the Industry and their customers don't want us to do and say. They say the truth will set you free and I think that is true. It's very effective against false burdens of unearned gratitude.

Gonna lay my burden down, Lord. I'm gonna lay my burden down. Sing-along, anyone?

Where Is True Brilliance and Charity?

Both qualities seem to have left us and we are forced to deal with the popular and the politically expedient. I am thinking, especially, of two very opposite personalities, today. While the name of the Florence Crittenton Homes can conjure some pretty lousy memories for many a natural mother, the original mission of this service was not as a clearing house for adoptable infants in utero. Kate Waller Barrett, who, with businessman Charles Nelson Crittenton, created this service, was trying to help the young mother with child care instruction, medical care, good nutrition and all the thing that would give any young mom a good start. It never entered her mind to do anything but help these young women keep and raise their children and give them the consideration and caring they could not find in society at large. It was only after WWII that the punitive and avaricious practice of using maternity homes to produce infants for adoption began in earnest.

I did a little research at the behest of a friend and wrote a short essay on Ms. Barrett for publication. This was a woman who was filled with the right kind of compassion, who saw a wrong and wanted to right it. I wonder what she would think if she viewed the adoption industry as it is today. I wonder how it would make her feel to see the organization that she and Charles Crittenton formed and named after Crittenton's late daughter turned into an arm of that industry. Some of the Crittenton services are trying to get back, a bit, to the original purpose, but the Industry looms large.

Kate Waller Barrett didn't qualify her charity by judging the worth of the mothers she helped according to their marital status. She knew that it took two to create a child and she knew that men often left a woman to deal with whatever happened once he took what he wanted. She recognized her good fortune and wanted other women to experience it. She didn't charge these young women if they didn't surrender their children. She didn't try to sell babies to the well-heeled. She didn't do any of the things that many who styled themselves as "charitable" have done. That kind of honest charity takes courage and determination, not a desire to make a fortune off the pain of others.

Any kind of honesty takes courage. I have long admired the comedian and philosopher (yes, I consider him one of the most brilliant social minds of our time), George Carlin. His one-liners usually made more sense than all the most learned tomes of Kierkegaard, Adams, Sartre or a host of others. I love his jaundiced view of authority, such as, "The real reason that we can’t have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse: You cannot post “Thou shalt not steal,” “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” and “Thou shalt not lie” in a building full of lawyers, judges, and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment." It's funny that he mentions the people who are the arbiters, supporters and technicians of adoption. It's hard to find one of that crowd on the side of the single mother.

I consider George Carlin to have been brilliant and another who was ahead of his time. He didn't back down to the networks and he showed us that personal integrity could be hilarious.

I am going to take a page from Carlin's book and be honest about something. I have watched the fight between the Vaughns and the natural father of the little boy, Grayson, they wanted to adopt. I watched as the self-entitled adopter wannabes defied one court order after another. People were lauding the judges who ruled in favor of the rights of the father. I applaud the outcome, but have one question. When are these judges going to favor the rights of the mother who is conned out of her baby?  Benjamin Wyrembek fought the good fight, but so did Stephanie Bennett and her family and they were just SOL. I saw no one making a move to honor the original order to return baby Evelyn to the Bennett home. It's still a man's world. Grayson's mother was required, by her husband, not Wyrembek, to surrender her son. I pray she will have an opportunity to play a positive part in his life.

I'm also glad to see eye to eye on many of George Carlin's observations about organized religion. He once said that he was happy for people who had a relationship with a deity that would tell them what to do. What he didn't like was these same people using what they got from their deity to tell others what to do. The church and its influence on our society has made us one of the most judgmental, prudish national cultures on earth. And the concern is not on hate, disease, poverty, famine or any of those ills. No. It's all about who got a BJ while in office and who is qualified to keep their children based on their marital status. The nose of the pious is stuck in the private bedroom of us all. Sex is the great Satan but sending our young people to some dessert thousands of miles away from home to be killed is righteous?

So, what would I say if I were able to speak to both these people, today? I would tell them that they and their efforts and ideas are sorely missed. I have yet to see anyone with the heart and the backbone to take their place. Meanwhile, the tears of untold numbers of mothers and their children still flow, inequities are still unchallenged and the beat goes on.

Hmmm, what would Kate do and what would George say? It's something to consider.

A Quest For Peace

I heard this the first time at an Alanon meeting. "Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm." This has been attributed to the Bible, as a Native American adage, the AA Big Book...I found several different sources, but where it originated is not important. For me, it is the message. I am reaching for that serenity, right now.

I feel like I have been living in the middle of a war zone. Around me, the bursting bombs of the National Adoption Awareness Farce, canine cancer and loss, the Tea Bagger fear and bigotry election results...are all a cacophony of ear-splitting noise.The sounds I hear set my teeth on edge like fingernails on a blackboard. When it comes to that Adoption Awareness thing, I cringe to think this dissonance will go on for a solid month. At least the election is over. I wish the talking heads on TV would get that message.

A friend and I were talking about how neither of us turned on the news on Wednesday. I guess my hope was nothing against the cynical "I knew this was going to happen" of those pragmatic thinkers who were prepared for this national disaster. Just like the GOP spin doctors spent a lot of effort to make "liberal" a bad word, now they are waving the red flag of "Socialism" in the face of the fearful faithful. They grabbed the Tea Partiers and used them like a two-dollar whore. Yeah, yeah...I know. This was bound to happen...conservative backlash and all that...inexperienced president..Watch out, here comes Palin, blah, blah, blah.

OK...then let's see to the storm shelters. I find peace by knowing I am doing my best. I find peace by knowing I am speaking my truth. And I find peace by having lived long enough to know that things always change. And I find peace by periodically withdrawing from the fray and concentrating on loved ones and things I love to do.

So, politically, I have done my civic duty and, though it didn't turn out the way I had hoped, I voted my conscience and I have nothing for which to apologize or to regret.

I am wearing my ribbon when I go out and answering the questions as they come. I am working on another letter to the editor of the Orlando Sentinel which will either be rejected again or hidden among the hymns of praise to adoption that fill the pages of that publication during November. But, again, I will have done as my conscience led me and will have nothing to regret, there, either.

In our house, right now, we have both mourning and joy, and that combination is enough with which to deal today.

Oh, and sticking pins into my Sarah Palin doll takes up some of my time..... May a large moose run her down and step on her vocal chords. And no, I am not ashamed of myself for writing that.

Cackle!!!!!

Vroom, Vroom

November used to remind me of cooling temperatures, Thanksgiving and preparing for the Holidays. Now, it includes a less enjoyable observance. Yep, it's good, old National Adoption Awareness Month and time for the farting of rainbows by clueless unicorns. But I am revving up to do my snarky best to keep the truth about adoption an obtainable commodity.

It's kind of like a drag race between us and them. Now, if I were a dragster, I would probably be a Funny Car, but when it comes to this issue, there is no mistaking the passionate power behind the rumble from my glass pack muffler. I just have to watch my fuel mixture because I can explode.

I intend to do my share of blogging in direct contradiction to the posies and idylls from the creators and sponsors of this annual farce. I love the fact that, at SMAAC, we have dubbed November to be National Adoption BEwareness Month. For us, this is a month for wearing our ribbons, for observing National Strange and Mournful Day (from a line from Paul Simon's "Mother and Child Reunion") and getting in your face with the Industry that trades in the flesh of children.

The lobbyists and the National Council For Adoption and other facilitator groups have done a good job of buying off legislators and conning the public with warm, fuzzy images that are anything but reality. We just came out of the fog an average of two decades ago. The adoption engine has been humming merrily along during that time. The Industry counted on our silence to keep their numbers up, but the supply dwindled while the demand remained strong so they had to adapt. Their marketing and PR techniques are top of the line. All we have are our individual voices.

I got my ribbon badge out of my jewelry box and am freshening it up. It's simple enough to put together with black ribbon for grief and loss, red for passion and righteous anger and white for hope. Most of us pin ours on with a stud earring with the birthstone of our child who was appropriated for adoption. In my case, that is a diamond (April) for my daughter and a pearl (June) for my son. I wear it everywhere and am happy to explain its meaning to anyone who asks.

I invite all my sister mothers, especially those from the EMS/BSE, to write letters to the editors, engage in discussion, write their elected representatives, blog, if you like, add this to your facebook page and get the word out. This is a race we need to win and it's not won in just one heat.

So, Ladies, start your engines, watch for those staging lights on the Christmas Tree and show the industry your rear bumper. Vroom, vroom.

Getting Out The Vote

....In more ways than just one. We are at the deadline for voting for the Demons of our choice. The following is borrowed...well, blatantly stolen from Musing Mother.

4th Annual Demons in Adoption Awards Nominations

Each year Pound Pup Legacy presents the Demons of Adoption Award to raise a voice against adoption propaganda and the self congratulatory (specious and vomitous) practices of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute's annual Angels in Adoption Awards(TM)

Until October 30 you will have the opportunity to vote for the recipient of this year's award. To vote, go to:

http://poundpuplegacy.org/node/45564

The nominees are:

LDS Family Services: for being the most secretive of all adoption agencies, using coercive tactics in obtaining infants for adoption and having no respect for father's rights; (my personal favorite and I protest by finding those "missionaries'" bikes, chained to a light post and let the air out of their tires)

Gladney center for adoption: for being one of the most profit-centered agencies around and blocking open record efforts in Texas; (Wonder if Mexico would like this part of Texas back?)

Christian World Adoption: for their involvement in "harvesting" practices in Ethiopia and their blind ambition to "save" each and every "orphan" in this world;

Larry S. Jenkins: for his involvement in nearly every case where father's rights were violated;

Joint Council on International Children's Services: for promoting the interest of adoption agencies at the expense of children, and pushing agency friendly legislation in Congress;

Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute for giving their seal of approval to persons and organizations that promote the interests of the adoption industry and pushing agency friendly legislation in Congress;

Council on Accreditation: for their lack of research done on inter-country adoption agency histories prior to giving out Hague accreditation;

American Adoption Congress: For failing to remove state reps who were openly working against open access for adult adoptees;

American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey: for opposing open records for adoptees and "protecting" closet moms, based on a "stack of anonymous letters" claimed to be from "birthmothers".

Christian Alliance for Orphans: for promoting the business interests of adoption agencies through churches.

Southern Baptist Convention: for passing resolution no. 2 , pushing the business interests of adoption agencies to the members of their church;

Adoption.com for systematically banning voices that oppose current adoption practices and their continuous pro-adoption propaganda;

Scott Simon: for his vomit-inducing book “Baby, We Were Meant For Each Other” and his grotesque crying and blubbering about his purchasing of another human being;

WE TV: for their hideously exploitative series ‘Adoption Diaries,’ turning what is a highly emotive and complex topic into ‘reality’ show fodder.
 
And the adoption-affected ask, because the adoption-affected dare, "WHO will it be?"  I can't wait for the results.

What A Week, Rainbow-Wise

This has been quite a week for rainbows in our house. First, our Rockmeister crossed the Rainbow Bridge to a peaceful rest. Then little Dolly joined our family and her light is shining through our tears to create more rainbows. But then, darn it, I read a post by an adoptee/social worker, farting copious adoption rainbows.

Her post was a complete flight of fantasy. I would copy and paste but that is against the forum rules. It ran the gamut from the usual "good adoptee" paeans of praise and love for her adopters, and frequent use of the "b" word, to how lucky children are that are born to "Hero B****Mothers" (her term) who love them enough to give them away. I felt the urge to regurge.

The bitch of it is that I think this person truly, at least to her conscious mind, believes this crap. To believe otherwise would be a scary proposition for her. Her purple, pink, yellow and green prose evoked images of the fatuous smiles of religious cult fanatics. I can almost see a bumper sticker saying "Smile, Adoption loves you." And, oh yes, she did imply that adoption is all God's idea. Poor God. Whatever He/She is, He/She gets both blame and credit in areas I think He/She would rather avoid. But then I have learned, sadly, that the God of most folk's understanding is created in their own image. I once heard someone, I don't remember who, say, "There is a God and his name is Ego."

I had an image in my mind as I read that post. I saw, amid all those specious, precious proclamations of the wonderful nature of adoption, a little girl, hiding in the corner of her mind, shutting her eyes tightly so she can't see the monsters. That little girl is just as confused and sad as any other adoptee who has been deprived of roots, heritage and, most importantly, their natural mother. So she has constructed an elaborate defence made of rainbow colors, unicorns, fairies and angel wings and plopped herself deep in the middle of this airy fort by making her career one of doing to other mothers and their children what was done to her and her mother.

Usually, I get angry and frustrated when I read such drivel. I will admit to a bit of frustration, but, more than anything, I just felt sad for this woman. I imagine that her arms and hands are very tired from holding on so tightly to that unreal world of hers. And that baby girl inside her psyche still cries for her mother.

I have to shake my head at the society that allows so many myths to make up the fabric of life for so many. We're taught terribly skewed history in schools. We're bombarded with dogma and miracles rather than love and acceptance in church, we are suckered in by false promises from politicians, and many of us live with that 800-pound gorilla, smack in the middle of the room, and never acknowledge him. Hey everyone! Reality can be harsh but it can also be wonderful. You take it all as part of the fabric of real life.

This poem, one whose author is unknown, calls us out as wasters of real rainbows. That might be the reason so many people reach a point in their life when they are all out of them...no more rainbows, and that's sad. If you don't have one or two tucked away, then you are ripe for terminal depression.

Rainbows Are Not For Everyday

Rainbows are not for everyday …
Their essence is transience,
The bitter sweet poignance
Of a beloved who died young.
Born from the slow dying
Of a million rain drops
They cast a magic spell
Of laughter and tears
On all my empty days.
Rainbows are not for everyday
I keep them folded away
For a rainy day.
Till a magical fragment
Of memory
Explodes …..
And they blaze across the sky
Setting the day afire
With their radiance.
Overtaking me with the wonder
Of an undeserved gift.
Rainbows are not for everyday.
A rainbow is a bridge
And a bridge is for passing
You cannot hold a
rainbow in your hand.

Oh, but don't so many of us try?

The Best Medicine....

.....for grief is often in doing something good for someone who needs it. Rocky was a shelter rescue. When you walk into one of those places, it is hard not to want to take them all home. We found ourselves up and getting dressed and heading for the SPCA and the local shelter, yesterday. There was a void in this house that cried out for a dog. We wanted to honor Rocky by giving another furry, little guy or gal a real home rather than a cement-floor cage. We looked at several small dogs, but my heart went out to a skinny, little Rat Terrier, smaller than Rocky and with black markings and a full tail, who was timid but affectionate. While she and Rocky share some traits, since Rocky was a Rattie Mix, she is very much herself. So...welcome home, Dolly.

She is a little bundle of energy, alway on the go. She is supposedly afraid of men but she loves my hubby. She is underweight and skittish and very inquisitive and is going to take some work as far as training goes. "Sit" is a foreign concept to her and when I try to gently push her bum down on the floor, she cringes as if she fears I am going to hurt her. We are working on the trust thing, right now.



I had some loved ones ask if it weren't too soon for us to have another dog. We didn't have any illusions going that getting a new pup would take away our grief. We just knew we were the kind of people who had learned that they needed a dog in the home. Dolly isn't replacing Rocky. You can't replace one furbaby with another any more than you can replace one child with another. But, she is a little bit of a goof ball and she acutally had me roaring with laughter yesterday. We have a framed picture of Rocky sitting on a shelf and I felt like he was watching her antics and thinking, "Who is THIS bitch?"

I will continue to mourn Rocky, but we do have closure, and time will make the ache lessen. When I lost my two oldest children to adoption, I have to say that I rushed to have more. Just like a dogless home is empty, a mother without a child is also empty. I never stopped missing and wanting Sara and Jay, but the joy that Kerry and Sam gave me helped me know that love comes in an endless supply. They didn't replace their siblings taken for adoption, but they allowed me to be what I became when I first felt my oldest move in my womb...a mother. And I love them both dearly for who they are and have never faulted them for who they weren't. Dolly isn't Rocky, but that's OK. Dolly's a damn good doggie on her own merit.

No matter what, life goes on. Grieving is a part of life for the living. I wonder if I would have fared better had I, at least, been allowed to mourn the loss of my daughter and son in an overt manner? I have received so many condolences on Rocky's passing, but only a couple of people would acknowledge my pain over the loss of my children. Everyone else seemed uncomfortable with my grief...even my own family. I and many other mothers who had children taken for adoption can attest to the fact that supressed grief can really do some damage to the old psyche.

I found myself telling my little girl doggy that she was a "good boy," this morning. No, I still have a lot of hurt ahead of me for my Rocky. But I also have a sweet little lady to care for and that helps, immeasurably. She is finding her own place in my heart, just as my raised children did. That's the thing about love.

You usually don't run out and it seems to multiply in proportion to the need.

Rocky Westbrook 11/13/2002- 10/25/2010

You know what I have learned? I have learned that we Natural Mothers don't handle loss all that well. This morning at 9:10 AM, we said our last goodbyes to our beloved Rocky and released him from his suffering. We had to do what was best for him. Keeping him alive even though he was having great difficulty breathing and was bleeding internally from the Mast Cell Tumor cancer that had spread throughout his system would have been the ultimate cruelty. My husband and I are making our way through this day in a haze of tears and grief but knowing that no love, however brief, is ever wasted or without worth.

What we received from Rocky in the 23 months he was with us was unconditional, exuberant and priceless. He was a joy of a little guy who had very bad luck with his health, but good luck finding people who would fight for him. I don't feel that we lost the fight. We set him free and that is a victory, especially when we wanted so badly to try anything to keep him going.

Now one of my children would argue with me, but I am going to hope and believe that there is something after this life...maybe not the way it is presented in the churches...but something that keeps going after the body fails. I want to believe that his spirit is running free, digging up gopher tortoise holes, barking at doorbells and sniffing his way through the woods. I want to believe that he is waiting for us to throw his cow hoof so that he can fetch it and then play "keep-away" with us. I want to believe that there will come a time when he will play "race to the bed" with us, again. And I hope, in that place, wherever he is, there are all manner of garbage cans to investigate.

Go with our blessings, Rockmeister. You carry a big piece of our hearts with you. Rest now..the bad part is over.

We love you, Little Guy.


On the death of the Beloved
by John O'Donohue
(1956 - 2008) Timeline

Though we need to weep your loss,
You dwell in that safe place in our hearts,
Where no storm or might or pain can reach you.
Your love was like the dawn
Brightening over our lives
Awakening beneath the dark
A further adventure of colour.

The sound of your voice
Found for us
A new music
That brightened everything.

Whatever you enfolded in your gaze
Quickened in the joy of its being;
You placed smiles like flowers
On the altar of the heart.

Your mind always sparkled
With wonder at things.
Though your days here were brief,
Your spirit was alive, awake, complete.

We look towards each other no longer
From the old distance of our names;
Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath,
As close to us as we are to ourselves.

Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,
We know our soul's gaze is upon your face,
Smiling back at us from within everything
To which we bring our best refinement.

Let us not look for you only in memory,
Where we would grow lonely without you.
You would want us to find you in presence,
Beside us when beauty brightens,
When kindness glows
And music echoes eternal tones.

When orchids brighten the earth,
Darkest winter has turned to spring;
May this dark grief flower with hope
In every heart that loves you.
May you continue to inspire us:
To enter each day with a generous heart.
To serve the call of courage and love
Until we see your beautiful face again
In that land where there is no more separation,
Where all tears will be wiped from our mind,
And where we will never lose you again.

(Sent to me by a friend "Down Under" who is also dealing with canine cancer.)

The Bully God, And The Unwed Mother

"...the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."-- Job 1: 20-21 (KJV) People have used the image of the Judeo-Christian God to intimidate, justify war, condone torture and intolerance....you name it. Those of us who have lost children to the adoption industry know this God on a first-hand basis. For some of us, his name was never invoked, but he was there, in the background, in the minds of the families, social workers and everyone else during the BSE. Just like Torquemada, the engineer of the Spanish Inquisition, many of these folk felt they were doing God's work by systematically divesting unmarried mothers of their infants. They might as well have put us to the rack.

That this idiocy lingers to this day speaks to the arrogance and ignorance of a lot of people. I remember the feeling I had in Sunday School when I was taught that the Jews were, supposedly, the chosen people of God. Where did that leave us? "Well," said the teacher, "Jesus came along and fixed that."
 

So now the Christians think they are above everyone else by virtue of their belief and they even have trained beemommies to pass that thought along. Everyone seems to have a need to not only feel superior, but to feel that they are safe from whatever scares them. The problem is that, when philosophers and prophets began coming up with explanations for the things they didn't understand, they seem to have created the Creator in their own image, as a bully who has his representatives on earth to police, judge and correct. I wonder how Jesus would react to the people using his name and his teachings (as they are available) to condemn, adjudicate and correct those whom these worthy folk think are "sinning." Right...I think so, too.
 
In the present day, the message is delivered in mass doses via the media, polished by spin doctors and financed by ovine believers. You'd think that, after 2000 years, we would have outgrown the superstition and the intolerance and moved on to the message of love. Nah...how would people have power over the minds of others without a little blind faith? So, in the name of God, the Big Bully, the LDS, Bethany, and others are still running the social engineering game, taking from the unwed and vulnerable and giving to "the right kind of people" and, Goodness, No! No one gets a penny for this! Yeah, right again.
 
I am not a Christian, however I am a Theist and a spiritual person. I really hate to see perfectly good teachings used to justify this crime of taking the babies of those who just need a little help. I hate that this dogmatic drivel is being used to create Stepford Beemommies who, with wide, glazed eyes, insist on telling other young women who are expecting how glorious it is to surrender your child in the name of the Most High. There is still the judgement against overt sexuality and the shaming still goes on and on and on.
 
Take a look at the Westboro Baptists who protest at military funerals. They proclaim that "God Hates Faggots!!" I didn't think that God hated anyone. When did God become so obsessed with human sexuality that he ignores war, famine, child abuse, human trafficking, slavery, poverty and disease to go after people being who and what they are? I dunno, but that seems a bit one-sided of the Almighty to me.
 
Now, I know that there are Christians who are not into either forcing their personal beliefs down the gullets of others or caring about what two (or more *giggle) consenting adults do in their bedrooms. But they don't shout as loud and are not as intrusive and abusive as their more fundamentalist, evangelical brethren. But, only a few have the courage to speak out against these pious preeners. Jim Wallis, and the Sojourners publication, available on line, are trying to get the message back to love and caring for one's neighbors but they have enough to do just fending off Glen Beck.
 
Meanwhile, as it was in our day and is to this day, God is still the Big Bully In The Sky, throwing down thunderbolts and smiting whoever dares to cross the arbitrary line drawn by the pundits in the pulpits. I refuse to blame anyone for taking my children other than the ones who did and, while they professed to be God's people, I don't believe it. I really have no description of the God of my Agnostic lack of understanding, but I am sure that he/she wouldn't approve. I would love to see these arrogant proselytizers step out from behind their protective assumptions and take responsibility for their actions.
 
That would be refreshing. It would also be honest and I don't think that they are there, yet.

Oxymoron of the Day: Ethical Adoption

The list of oxymorons in regular use is astounding. "Awfully good," "adult children," "a fine mess," and one of my personal favorites, "jumbo shrimp." The latest on my list is this one; "Ethical Adoption." This is being used by those who consider themselves more sensible, sane and realistic than those of us who want to see adoption cease and something more child-centered put in its place. Mention that someone is anti-adoption and you get the usual gasps of outrage (it's as if the flag had been burned) and the charges of anger (well duh) and bitterness.

I am against adoption because it cannot, as a means of creating artificial relatives, ever be child-centered or ethical. Those who think that can put an old product in a new box and it will be just fine, fine, fine are, I believe, not getting the point. As long as adoption, the transference of a child from natural kin to unrelated people with a legal writ declaring that they are parents to that child ,exists there can be no ethics involved. As long as it is seen as beneficial, in any way, then mothers can be swayed by popular opinion and presentation.

How can any adoption be ethical? It is about providing a couple with a child, preferably a healthy infant. It brings to mind another of my favorite oxymorons..."compassionate conservatism." Adoption has created a class of people in this country that I refer to as the Elite Self-Entitled. Rather than a Lexus or a McMansion or a flat-screen TV, these folks want reality changed for them. They want a child. They want to deny their infertility and they don't want to wait. Some of them, according to one study, don't even want to do the deed that creates children. Yes, that's right. Many are childless because their union is asexual. It's a recently discovered phenomenon but one that I can imagine is not all that new.

Now, simple biology would tell you that, barring other reasons for infertility, you have to get the baby IN before you can get it out. There are others such as Jillian Michaels, Helen Mirren and a few skinny actresses and bodyphiles who don't want to sully their bodies with pregnancy and childbirth but want the title of Mommy and the appearance of the normal family. Lots of them also love that automatic halo that society confers on the adopter. I wonder if some of these adopters I won't mention but whose initials are Angelina Jolie think that adopting can divert people's attention from earlier, kinky, strange and questionable behavior.

 So, we are supposed to keep adoption alive to cater to these people? Are we supposed to try to find a way to Bondo, sand, paint and polish the wreck and present it as a new, improved model just to keep providing babies for people who have tried for two or three years and declared themselves infertile? Fast-tracking is all the rage in everything and some people just have to make life meet their schedules, don't they? Again, they want what they want when they want it. The body may be shiny but the engine is still clogged and dirty.

Let's get something straight (and to my gay and lesbian friends, I apologize for that word). Parenting is not a right for ANYONE. It is not a right that heterosexuals have so homosexuals should have as well. It is not something that someone should have just because they have the house, car, career and bank account. It is something that happens according to biology and nature. Wanting to parent is not a guarantee of being able to attain parenthood nor should it be. Nature makes those decisions.

I guess adoption could be made somewhat more "ethical" if it were taken away from the churches as a means of increasing their numbers and doing a bit of Christian social engineering. I suppose it could be more ethical if attorneys were not paid to advise their adopting clients to run with the baby and ignore court orders if a natural parent changes their mind or never agreed to the adoption in the first place.  But to me, these concessions are too little and too vague.

Kinship, good, well-run group homes and legal guardianships have not been given a fair shake in this country. In many states, a grandparent, aunt or uncle who wants to care for a child whose parents are deceased, of diminished capacity or who abandoned said child are forced to adopt that child in order to keep the family intact. So a kid winds up calling his/her grandparents Mom and Dad and the mother is the sister and their cousins are their nieces and nephews and I'm My Own Grandpa. In my day, the family just stepped in and added the child to the household with no admonitions to call relatives anything other than by their correct title.

To me, it's simple and I speak for no one else but myself. Ethical adoption is as impossible as that old one about silk purses from sows' ears. So gasp and call me bitter. I am not ashamed and I think I have logic and common sense in my reasoning.

I am simply, unapologetically anti-adoption and that ain't no oxymoron.

Only Women Bleed

Alice Cooper's song was meant to be about physical abuse of women by their spouses and significant others. I used to see it, though, in the context of my experience as a Natural Mother. I menstruated, therefore I was a female who proved to be fertile. I bled on a monthly basis until I became pregnant and I bled from the wounds of delivery after my children were born. This is something men don't have to endure. When I was "one of those girls" in the early 1960's, we couldn't even prove that the father of our child was, indeed, the real father. ALL of the blame, shame, isolation, punishment, shunning, and abandonment was borne by the unwed mother. Very few guys got any fall-out or flack from their sowing of wild oats.

I received a message from an adopted person, yesterday. She's a lovely, intelligent young woman who has been struggling with the rejection she received from her natural mother over a decade ago. While the biggest part of me has trouble understanding this mother's reaction, there is a part of me that wonders just what mom did go through in those days back then.

I wonder what happened that shut off that part of her that carried and gave birth to this adult child. I wonder if there was a trauma that was laid on top of trauma. And I wonder if it was at the hands of a man against a powerless girl. It happens too often and is discussed too seldom. I think that is why I came out with the fact that I was raped. It was my just my luck that it resulted in another pregnancy, but there are many of us who were date-raped after losing a child to adoption. I also know that there were a few girls, here and there among the inmates of the homes in which I was incarcerated, who were abused by close family members and impregnated. I can remember the sick, horrified feeling I got when one of them casually mentioned being raped, on a regular basis, by her own father.

I often find myself thinking about all of that horror and injustice whenever I hear of a mother who has refused a relationship with her adult child. I also know that everyone is different. What one of us may survive with just scars, others never recover from and carry open wounds for a lifetime. Some just don't have the courage to face the pain of the memories they have carefully buried. Some fear losing the life and the family they have built since their loss. Some just never got over the shame and still want to hide their past (perceived) sins in a locked vault. But others..I just can't help thinking that there are some who are hiding a horrific secret...one that they cannot face without a fear of losing their sanity or worse.

Some are survivors, some aren't. Some go on to live and some go on to float on the surface of life without ever venturing into the depths. Denial can be a real bitch. While I don't think it is healthy to live in the past, it is equally unhealthy to fear and regret it. Once things have happened, they are irretrievable. You can't make them "unhappen" by forcing the memory down into the dark parts of the mind. The fact of what happened is always going to be there. You can't run from it or hide for long. It will turn up again and some coping mechanisms hurt others as well as yourself. That makes me think of the adage, "wherever you go, there you are."

We leave a trail through life. Each incident, each joy, each crisis, is a footprint in the soil of our existence. For too many woman and their children appropriated for adoption, there is a hitch in the trail, a side trip of pain. Some deal. Others hide.

Maybe some women have just bled too much.

Truth Can Really Be Inconvenient

"An Inconvenient Truth," the documentary film with Al Gore, made a point about more than just global warming. While that was the focus of the film, another fact it brought home to me is how much we human beings like to be told just what we want to hear. If it impacts our lifestyles, gets in the way of our wants and desires, or throws a bit of a monkey wrench into the gears of the commerce that keeps us fat and sassy, then we don't accept it or listen to it.

It's like the church in the middle ages. They held a lot of power and they definitely didn't want to hear the truth about the nature of the Universe. Just in the late 19th century, there was a battle between superstition and science brought about by the discovery of the probability of evolution. Now we have a bunch of Bible-thumpers wanting to call the "theory of intelligent design" a science. I wonder when and if our human race will ever grow up and stop trying to engineer life and science in our own image?

Here, on this blog, and on others, the truth is being told about adoption, about loss, grief, pain and the dark underbelly of an Industry that traffics in human babies. People don't want to hear this. They don't want to think of the pain experienced by the mother and the pre-verbal grief and identity problems of the adopted person. They just want to see that warm, fuzzy story where an infant is presented to Mr. and Mrs. Perfect, fairies and unicorns frolic and fart rainbows, and all live happily ever after. MYTH

Those who have adopted and those who plan to adopt want to look upon the transaction as that kind of fantasy. They want to believe that the mothers are all willing and ready to turn over their babies without a qualm. The ones who didn't know us, loved to manufacture images of careless tramps or courageous sacrificers. Those that are in open adoptions are so sure these mothers wanted nothing more than to place their infants in the homes of the adopters. MYTH...they don't want to hear that the industry and the government and churches have done a real bang-up job with their brainwashing and that the greatest help they could give a young mother would be to help her keep and raise her own child. They don't want to know that the mother bites her tongue in order to protect what little contact she has been able to get with her child. I know many adult adoptees who wish someone had been kind to their mothers, kind enough to help them stay together.

People don't want to hear that most of the mothers of the BSE were stripped of every last bit of fight and self-respect in an ongoing campaign to take their babies. They are, again, sure that we wanted our "shame" erased. They want to see us, now, as fragile flowers, hiding in the closet and demanding anonymity. MYTH...This is very clever manipulation, again, by the industry, to put adoptees and their Natural Mothers at odds with each other. They blame US for closed records when the truth is that the only reason records were closed was to protect the adopters from the upsetting intrusion of the Mother. When in doubt, follow the money.

Oh, and about the money....I have heard insistent arguments that "no one made a penny off our adoption." MYTH....Really? Did the attorney that drew up the papers do so pro bono? Did the agency workers or the social workers decline their salaries? I've seen actual agency price lists with newborn, Caucasian females at the top of the list. These are some expensive little girls. It's a business, people! It brings in excess of $1.6 BILLION big ones a year. And, as a business, it follows the bottom line and that line has no room for caring about the welfare of the mother or the infant "product."

And, the noble adopters...MYTH...This industry is not about a home for a needy child, but about a baby for a needy adult who cannot accept their lot in life. There is NOTHING of altruism in infant adoption. These people are NOT saints and they are NOT noble. They are human beings who want what they want when they want it and they don't want to know they are hurting someone in the getting of it. Those that do get an inkling of the truth are quick to redirect their thoughts.

Yes, the truth about adoption IS uncomfortable, inconvenient and not very politically correct. It's a mark of the insanity of a society that is on the wane. The "leading nation of the free world" is woefully behind a lot of other countries in correcting this melange of money, coveting and social engineering. Adoption, in the US, is sanctioned by both church and government which really makes me want to go back and read the Constitution, again because something stinks.

Here is the scariest truth of all. Right now, in this country, the Industry, in collusion with Right Wing Christian reactionaries, is trying to drag us all back to the bad old days of Victorian attitudes, homes for "unwed mothers" and twin beds in the bedrooms on TV and in the movies. Like the Puritans of old, they are showing more interest in what goes on in the bedroom than in the boardroom where the real sinning is taking place. I am sure that getting people all riled up about the supposed cost of unmarried mothers is a great distraction and keeps the wheels of commerce turning.

Well, we Senior Natural Mothers have been there and that is a bad place to be. We don't want our daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters victimized again by a heinous double-standard. I'll be damned if I will let some fat cat in an Armani suit force any of my descendants to sacrifice their own children to Mammon.

TRUTH: This is about men controlling women and women being in collusion with those men. Adoption, as a dear friend of mine says, is "woman's inhumanity to woman."

TRUTH: We need to take a close look at where we are going with a lot of these state legislations. Someone is doing some manipulation and it isn't Natural Mothers.

TRUTH: If the church and the government get any closer, they are going to be attached at the hip and then every family, wed, unwed, poor, middle-class, will have to worry about keeping their children.

TRUTH: People just don't want to hear this, do they?

Bad Bill Boogie

From Illinois to New Jersey to any other state in the nation, the Open Records legislations are in bloom. And, without exception, so far, they all seem to stink, to be mired in the muck of the requirements placed on Natural Mothers as the Industry and its minions seek to cover their culpable asses. When I have read the various bills, pages upon pages, I see the language becoming more convoluted, more adversarial and more and more designed to keep the adopters happy and the Industry chugging away. Some of these bills are in excess of 100 pages. The original Open Records bill in Oregon was only a few paragraphs. What the HELL is wrong with this picture?

Some of these bills only grant access to adoptees born before or after certain dates. Others insist on intermediaries. And, most of them seem to require mandatory medical/psycho-social histories from the Mothers. And, for that, we Mothers get...Nada...No equal access to our children's amended BC or a way to find them. We are expected to fight for their right to their OBC in spite of the fact that we get no access for ourselves and are, indeed, penalized with the requirements and, if we don't want to allow the state into our personal business..what then? What are they going to do to us? Put us in jail? Or, will we wind up being the goats for the wrongful adoption suits that are now filed against agencies by disappointed adopters? Let's see...I think it will be door number two.

This whole campaign is another lose-lose for the mothers. We've already had our human rights and our civil rights violated in the worst kind of way and now we're supposed to campaign to let it happen again? Some of our adult children think we should not only supply that information, through the state, but keep it updated every two years. WHAT!!?? If someone asked you to do that, you would laugh in their faces. But it is OK for our rights to be forfeit and our HIPAA rights violated, it seems. After all, we spread, signed and all that crap. C'mon! What is the statute of limitations for non-crimes? And for those with recalcitrant and unwelcoming mothers, I am NOT your mother and shouldn't have to pay the price for her actions.

I just had a picture run through my mind of two grandmothers sitting on a bunk in a cell, cigarettes behind their ears and wearing fetching, orange jumpsuits. Granny One asks Granny Two, "What are you in for?" Granny Two, replies, "Failure to update my medical history." Granny One.."Bummer...me too." Granny Two.."Yeah, we used up all our IRA fighting the lawsuits. Ya wanna be my bitch?"

It seems futile to tell those who support these bills that, in seeking their civil rights, they are trampling all over ours and we've already had that done to us. Our civil and human rights were totally ignored during the EMS/BSE. We're the survivors of a legalized crime..an assault on our humanity and our motherhood. I think that there are going to be a quite a few Mothers among us who will fight this violation of our personal rights. It's a simple fact that the (admittedly deserved) civil rights action being sought by adult adoptees is being accomplished by trying to deny the Mothers' civil rights. That doesn't have to be. But this is what happens when you get the Industry and adopters and mother-hating adoptees involved in the process.

Remember, one person's rights end where another's begins and we are no less deserving of that consideration than anyone else. I see the nasty spectre of punishing Mommy in all this. I'm one Mother here to say that I didn't deserve the punitive and unfair treatment I received when I lost my children to the adoption machine and I don't deserve to be punished now, by some inane rider on an open records bill. When you try to achieve a goal by stepping on the backs of others, it will come back to bite you in the end.

Now Hear This! I am NOT a second-class citizen or a criminal. I am NOT obligated to even my raised children to tell all and every little thing. My psycho-social history (actually, my sex life..entertainment for the prurient) is NO ONE'S BUSINESS but my own and certainly not that of the state. My medical history was shared in person, without demands and out of love. If you can't get it that way, then that's sad and that's tough. There might be other family members that you can ask but suing your Mother for that might just cost a lot of money and get you nothing in the end. Attorney legislators who are involved in this know that it's a very unlikely case to win.

But don't expect the support and the assistance of Mothers of the EMS who see through these bills and who have fought for and gained their self-respect. Make things more reasonable and equitable and you have some strong voices on your side. Keep harping on what you think you deserve at our expense and lose the support.

And quit stepping on my back. I was pushed to the ground 48 years ago. That won't happen again.

Another Issue Altogether

Every now and then, I am reminded that, though the arena of adoption-related activism covers a lot of territory, the fight for justice for the Mothers of the EMS is almost like "Star Wars, I, II and III"...a prequel. Once the industry and our parents and others had succeeded in taking our parental rights, adoption became the issue. We, in that era, did not "place." We did not "make an adoption plan" for our babies. We surrendered and the adoption plan was made by the agencies and social workers. Many of us were just doing what we were told to do, or else, or were manipulated and coerced into doing. There were some exception, but those mothers are the minority and not part of what this fight entails.

Most of the mothers from that era with whom I have talked and exchanged emails did not want to surrender their infants. Some of us tried to fight. Some of us begged and pled. Some of us were beaten down into the pits of low self-esteem. In order, it is said, to "create a family" through adoption, you must first destroy the mother. Well, in my case, they did a bang-up job of that. Thank God, I worked my way back to where I needed to be. It took years but I did it.

It is a good idea to remind folks that we were isolated, warehoused, hidden, shamed, blamed and abandoned by our families and the fathers of our babies while we were being groomed for surrender by the experts. OUR human and civil rights were ignored and violated. Most of us faced the unknown, scary prospect of labor and delivery without a single, caring and familiar face anywhere around. We were given aliases or were not allowed to use our last names. We wore fake wedding bands when we went outside the homes, as if that would fool anyone. We fell in love with the babies in our wombs just like any other pregnant woman. But we faced the birth of that baby with fear and grief.

Society labeled and categorized us. We were either sinning delinquents or psychologically damaged or both. We were fed lies upon lies, like "you will forget" and "having more children will take away the pain" and "THE baby is going DIRECTLY to a good home" and "THE baby will never miss you." Those are just a few of the lies we were told and, desperate for any comfort we could find, we believed those lies. These were adults, "experts," telling us this and we were raised to respect that. Usually the cobwebs were swept out of our brains upon reunion. Boy, were we surprised. That surprise came just before the eruption of suppressed grief, realization and righteous indignation.

We were confronted with the hard and painful truth that our absence in the lives of our children was deeply felt. We saw the damage that could do. We heard their stories, felt their resentment, cried with them and for them and realized that we still have to change the image of the unmarried mother from careless slut to who we really are...every woman....and from victim to warrior.

My girlfriend in SC just reunited with her daughter and, as she went through the non-ID, written by the social worker, she kept saying, "this is bullshit." Mine has just enough truth for me to know it was me, but it was twisted and slanted in such a way as to make it seem that I wanted to surrender my baby.

So, it is from all this and more, that we get our need to seek justice. We were young, vulnerable and what was done to us was done BECAUSE THEY COULD. I am no longer 16. I am 65 years old and I want to hear someone who should say "this was and is wrong," say it and mean it. We are owed something for our suffering and it isn't money so much as it is justice and redress. We paid the ultimate price for any mother...our children. Our babies are gone forever and we can never get them back. We are making relationships with adults..familiar strangers. We look now for respect for our experience and ourselves, and some honesty from a corrupt industry and the government and churches that sanction it. We want adopters to see what their demand for a child created. 

We may not get all we want before I shuffle off this mortal coil, but we can make a lot of people very uncomfortable. The more uncomfortable, I say, the better. From my experience, I would say they earned every little bit of it.

And hear this loud and clear. Facilitators, adopters, PAPs, even our adult children....we will no longer take any crap from anyone without fighting back. You can take that to the bank.

Porch Time in The Mountains

As we wait for the market to perk up and a chance to get the house sold, we spend a lot of time on the patio, with our eyes closed, dreaming. We had to move our timetable up another year and now have targeted Spring, 2011, as 'get the hell out of Florida' season. I don't know if either of us can manage another FL summer.

One of our "must-haves" in the house we hope to put on our land in WV is a porch or a covered deck with two rocking chairs. "Porch time" is great for re-charging spent emotional and physical batteries or just enjoying the gifts of nature. We have a hard time doing that with international jets coming in on the glide path over our heads and the front of the house is sub-division city. The back patio looks out over a more open area, a meadow and woods that is a designated wildlife sanctuary. But, even out back, you can hear every train, every siren, every bit of highway hum and horn-blowing. City folks, we ain't.

I am wondering where I will be with this blog, activism and the wild and crazy world of adoption loss, flames, debates and other indoor sports when we make THE move. Presently, I also deal with our personal, real-life needs, plans and the welfare of a little dog who was unfortunate enough to be prone to a nasty disease. I administer a chemotherapy drug to him, by mouth, three days a week. We have designated those days as "kick cancer's ass" days. The rest of the time, we are proclaiming "just be a dog" days.

Maybe I need to have "just be a person" days. I define myself, first, as a woman, then as a wife, mother, mommy, Nanny, great-grandmother, friend, sister, auntie, activist for Natural Mothers etc. But all those labels carry burdens and so much going on that the woman, the person, can often get buried if I am not very careful. Some days, I just want to be free to be at peace with who I am, to love my husband, kids, family, doggie and friends and sit on the porch and listen to the creek sing down the mountain. I don't want to debate, argue, prove a point or educate a damn soul. I just want to rock, breathe and listen.

I am tired of being labeled as "loose," "abandoner" and a second class person with no civil or human rights just because I loved, not wisely, the wrong guy as a teen and then had the bad luck to be with another guy who took what he wanted. I am sick to death of being blamed, being threatened with unreasonable requirements to be executed by the state, and being told I forfeited my rights to stand up for myself because of something I was forced to do at age 16. Sixteen then is nothing at all like sixteen, now. I'm not just tired of it, I am goddamn tired of it and I am leaning more and more towards chucking it all and heading for the porch.

How can I be expected to support someone who cannot even treat me with respect? I refuse to be a door mat for anyone or any cause, no matter how righteous. I don't think I should have to accept debasement in order to give support. I remember watching a movie once, where the ruler was walking through the market place when he came upon a large mud puddle. Now, he could have walked around it, but he just stood there, expectantly, while a group of slaves made their way to the puddle and laid down in it so that he could walk across using their bodies as a bridge. Not No, but No, Nae, Never!!!! I refuse to cringe and bow and scrape and act as a bridge over a mud puddle for anyone just because I am a Natural MOTHER.

Again, I surrendered, under duress, my PARENTAL rights, ONLY. I did NOT surrender my human or civil rights. And there is no one strong enough or with the right to take those from me.

My home is not open to anyone to come in and treat me and my sisters with disrespect. That includes my Facebook page and my blog. If you want my help, treat me with respect, do not make unreasonable demands of me, and appreciate my support rather than accepting it as just that to which you are entitled.

Let me know if that is all right with you. I'll be waiting on the porch. Oh, and if it sounds like I am pissed, I am. I also have as much right to that emotion as anyone else.

On A Bender Over Gender

The post, yesterday, where I was not very kind to Rod Stewart, Natural Daddy, brought out a lot of interesting comments. I was informed that, sometimes, the mother is the villain. Well, gee. I kinda knew that, in a minority of cases, that does happen. Silly me not to have mentioned it. You will be glad to know that my reconsidered opinion of the Rod Stewart situation....has not changed one whit. In fact, it has become even more my considered opinion, the more I learn about it.

This is more than just one isolated incident. We Natural Mothers have been watching, with growing dismay, as we get all the blame and the Ndads become the greatest, gosh-darned people on the earth. You would think that adopted people would better understand the concept of being abandoned, since they accuse us Mothers of that so often. Actually, it feels, sounds and seems to us that many adopted people are saying, "It's just peachy-keen for Daddy to have his fun with Mommy and then treat her like dirt, take off like the hounds are after him and put her in the position of having to surrender for the sake of her child's survival and her own because, if he comes out and says he is our Daddy 40+ years later, that makes him a great guy."

Someone once referred to the adoption equation as an uneven square with two sides (facilitators and adopters) being the winners and two sides (adoptees and natural mothers) being the losers. I am starting to see a lop-sided pentagram here because the pappies are definitely on the "win" side. As far as I am concerned, anything that either of the fathers of my two oldest have to offer me or them would be too little and way too late.

The connection to the Natural Mother is the more intense one. Ndads didn't give birth and then have to render their coerced signature giving up their rights. Our children emerged from our bodies and the mother has a mystique that is almost religious. So, if a Mother, abandoned by the father of her child, isolated from the support and comfort of her family and reeling from the litany of dire threats to her child's survival and her own, surrenders, then it is all her fault. Daddy can always lie (and many of them do) and say he was never told. BULLSHIT. In many cases, if daddy wasn't told, it was because Mommy knew it would be water off a duck's back and that she could look for no help from that corner. Believe me, kiddies. The vast majority of them knew and too damn many of them ran like scared rabbits.

For those of us who, like Susannah Boffey, were very much in love with the fathers of our babies, that makes the rejection of us and the infant created from that love even more painful. Stewart had his first chance when Susannah told him she was pregnant. He blew that one. He had another chance to acknowledge his daughter in the 80's but declined and blew that one, as well. NOW, when he is aging, looking for good PR and a way to keep his career afloat, he acknowledges his daughter. So, does that mean that the third time is the charm? It sure doesn't make him out to be the good guy or the hero.

I think this young woman needs to re-examine the reasons she and her Mother "didn't get on." Her adopter, who left everything to her natural son and nothing to her appropriated daughter, was still living and Streeter was still in full obligation and loyalty mode. Perhaps Susannah had refused to lick butts and humbly apologize for what she was perceived to have done wrong. Perhaps the conflicting loyalty issues were a problem. But this woman tried like the devil, for months, to keep her baby. She had to have been under enormous pressure, not the least from Stewart, and got backed into the proverbial corner. There are different sides to this story and, in the story of the reunion, we have only heard from one side. Excuse me if I keep an open mind and even make some educated guesses.

It is the difference in our genders that makes it easy for the male to scoot and leave the female holding the bag, as it were. For the man, it is a momentary pleasure. For the Mother, it is her body, her instincts, her pain, her life in jeopardy when giving birth. Believe me, for most of us, after going through that, surrender was the LAST thing we wanted to do. We are the ones who are penetrated, who bleed and who have our bodies and psyches prepared to nurture and protect. We are the ones who will sign a paper if it means security for our infants. Read Rohan McEnor's article about why Mothers surrender if you want to understand it better. The patrichial nature of our society allowed the fathers to get off, scott-free, while we carried the shame, the blame and the weight of pressure from parents and social workers, family and society.

Whenever I think of the father of my oldest child (the second one doesn't deserve a mention..I was relieved not to have him in my life), I often think of this verse from Linda Rondstadt's version of "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me." While tongue-in-cheek, it is accurate, barring locations.

Well, I met a boy out in (Spartanburg *)
And I ain't namin' names
But he really worked me over good
Just like Jesse James


Yes, he really worked me over good
He was a credit to his gender
He put me through some changes, Lord,
Sorta like a waring blender.

I am fortunate in that both my surrendered children see and know the true nature of their Natural Fathers. And I will stand, foursquare, behind any Natural Dad who steps up to the plate and wants to keep their child in the family and/or gives respect and support to the mother. I am overjoyed to see this kind of behavior on the part of fathers becoming a trend. And the Natural Father who acknowledges his adult child, right off the bat and tries to make amends to both his child and the Mother of his child has my grudging respect.

But I will be doubly damned if I am going to look at the picture of a man more than forty years out of his child's life, who has already forfeited two chances to make the grade, who smiles at the camera with his arm around said adult child's shoulders and think, "Gee, what a great guy." This geezer has a baby on the way by a current wife that is younger than his adult, reunited daughter. He's a player.

Sorry, but I don't see a hero or even a good guy, there. I see a guy who thinks with his "little brain" and tried to get away from the responsibility of that action and who is trying to salvage something, now. Excuse me if I sound a bit bitter over this one. I have a right to the feeling.

Like I said before, too little, too late.